Heart problems at 39?!
Discussion
Had an echocardiogram recently due to some chest pain that turned out to be muscular and went away.
However the echocardiogram came back saying my ejection fraction was 50% which is apparently low and now I have to be referred to a cardiologist.
This is pretty scary. 39 years old, 2 young kids etc. I am not overweight, exercise regularly, I eat ok, fairly healthy but with treats for sure. I also like a beer or two at the weekend.
So when am I going to drop down dead? Assuming I have some kind of heart disease or heart failure. Haven't been able to think about anything else since and the earliest cardiologist appointment I managed to get was in the 1st week of April.
I appreciate lots of other people have it worse but this has really knocked me for 6.
However the echocardiogram came back saying my ejection fraction was 50% which is apparently low and now I have to be referred to a cardiologist.
This is pretty scary. 39 years old, 2 young kids etc. I am not overweight, exercise regularly, I eat ok, fairly healthy but with treats for sure. I also like a beer or two at the weekend.
So when am I going to drop down dead? Assuming I have some kind of heart disease or heart failure. Haven't been able to think about anything else since and the earliest cardiologist appointment I managed to get was in the 1st week of April.
I appreciate lots of other people have it worse but this has really knocked me for 6.
Thanks all.
I wasn't expecting a diagnosis by posting, but then I am not sure what I was expecting :-)
All I can do is wait for this appointment and hope for the best. Hopefully the fact that I feel normal/fine means I am not going to drop down dead in the immediate future and whatever is causing my heart to be "weaker than normal" is treatable in some way. And as some have suggested, if it has been caught early, maybe it is a blessing in disguise.
One of the things that annoyed me the most about this was receiving a generic text message from my doctors telling me my heart was weaker than normal, a phone call to discuss it would have been nice. I promptly called them the next day to talk it through but the GP didn't really help much other than to give me this 50% ejection fraction number. I then googled it and decided I was basically dead. I am good at worst case scenario.
I wasn't expecting a diagnosis by posting, but then I am not sure what I was expecting :-)
All I can do is wait for this appointment and hope for the best. Hopefully the fact that I feel normal/fine means I am not going to drop down dead in the immediate future and whatever is causing my heart to be "weaker than normal" is treatable in some way. And as some have suggested, if it has been caught early, maybe it is a blessing in disguise.
One of the things that annoyed me the most about this was receiving a generic text message from my doctors telling me my heart was weaker than normal, a phone call to discuss it would have been nice. I promptly called them the next day to talk it through but the GP didn't really help much other than to give me this 50% ejection fraction number. I then googled it and decided I was basically dead. I am good at worst case scenario.
Armitage.Shanks said:
Unless I’m reading this wrong the result has come back on the low side of ‘Normal’.
So the result is ‘Normal’ so what’s the problem? Let the medical expert advise and get on with life.
That the trouble with testing procedures these days you go in for one thing they run some tests and they then pick up something that’s incidental to what you went in for and knew nothing about.
Depends, some places say 55% to 70% is normal. Some say 50% to 70% is normal. The NHS are saying I am borderline low and that the result is lower than expected. So the result is ‘Normal’ so what’s the problem? Let the medical expert advise and get on with life.
That the trouble with testing procedures these days you go in for one thing they run some tests and they then pick up something that’s incidental to what you went in for and knew nothing about.
Thanks for the comments everyone. The last few weeks have been stressful but got the all clear from my consultant today.
I had to have a special MRI which was not fun but has proved there is actually nothing wrong with my heart. I managed to get fast tracked by going private as I am covered through work.
The blessing in disguise is that I have altered certain lifestyle habits since the initial scare, mainly less salt and sugar intake.
I had to have a special MRI which was not fun but has proved there is actually nothing wrong with my heart. I managed to get fast tracked by going private as I am covered through work.
The blessing in disguise is that I have altered certain lifestyle habits since the initial scare, mainly less salt and sugar intake.
Gassing Station | Health Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff